The Lower School Experience

The world is interdisciplinary.
We think school should be too.

Organizing our lower school curriculum around a central theme

for each grade allows students to draw rich connections within and between subject areas. Think graduate-level social science—complete with investigations, hypothesizing, writing, and story collecting—only with more field trips.

Ranging from counting baby goats and predicting how much the garden will yield in the kindergarten’s study of farm life to the fifth graders’ study of Ancient Egyptian art and the engineering of pyramid-building, our lower school students become creative, sophisticated thinkers…who also know how to bake bread!

Connecting their own dots.

At Poughkeepsie Day School, we recognize that children are curious and strive to give them the time and space to pursue ideas and knowledge. Students discover how glass is blown, see what connects them to the people and places of their community, and come to understand the ecosystem of the Hudson River.